Winchester Miller
1835 - 29 Nov 1893
bornMorgan, Ohio, USA
diedTempe, Arizona, USA
SchooltblData
BiographySurveyor, freighter, farmer, and sheriff.Came to Tempe c1869.
When he was seven years old, his family moved to Libertyville, Iowa. He attended college at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and was a civil engineer. He went to Texas for a while on his way to California, c1860, and served as a Confederate soldier. He arrived in Tubac, Arizona, with Captain Nathaniel Sharpe, also a former Confederate officer, about 1867. At Tucson he joined a band of people coming to settle in the Salt River Valley, and passed through the area that would later become Tempe. He continued on to California, and returned to the Tempe area, c1869, when the only inhabitants of the valley were "Indians, a few Mexican farmers, and extremely few whites." He homesteaded land along the Kirkland-McKinney Ditch, across from the Sotelo ranch. In 1872, he brought two heavily loaded wagons and eight horses out from Los Angeles and started working as a freighter. In the 1870s, he ran freight wagons to Yuma several times each year, and returned with tools and supplies to trade in the Salt River Valley and the nearby mining camps.
He was one of the founders of the Tempe Canal, and was a long-time zanjero and President of the Tempe Irrigating Canal Company. He helped Charles Hayden extend the Tempe Canal to the Hayden Flour Mill. He took over administration of the Tempe Irrigating Canal Co. after Jack Swilling left. He developed a large farm. He owned 101 1/2 acres in SW4 of section 14, c1890. On this land, he had a half-section planted in wheat and a quarter-section in vegetables, a thirty-five acre fruit orchard producing plums, peaches, pears, apricots, and apples.
Had a spacious two-story adobe house on his homestead, near what is now Rural Road and University Drive. He was elected to several offices in the Tempe Irrigating Canal Co., including director (March 28, 1871), chairman (June 1, 1871), president and zanjero (August 16, 1872), director (July 1, 1875, Oct. 1887). He was a Democrat, and was actively involved in county politics. He was Maricopa County Sheriff in 1870s and 1880s, when he acquired a reputation as a fearless Indian fighter.
On 1 Feb 1884 was an incorporator of the Quijotoa, Tempe and Phoenix Wagon and Railroad Co.
He was also Trustee of Tempe School District No. 3 (1884), and was Tempe Road Superintendent (1887). His prominence in the Anglo community was bolstered by the support that he had from the Mexican population of Tempe. His widow Maria in 1923 lived at res. of AJ. Miller. In 1923 was a farmer, lived with A.J. Miller.
OSB 64
BIO-Miller
BIO-Miller, Winchester
Old Settlers Collection, THM
Portrait & Biog Record (1901), p. 276
Federal census, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900
Halbert Miller, THM oral history
Maria Sotelo Miller bio, ASU Archives
Florence Cath. Church, Marriage Register, 1873-1876
Maricopa Cty Superior Court, Manuela Sotelo probate
Maricopa County Great Register, 1882
TH-231
TH-231.01
TH-310
HPS-235
BIO-Armstrong
Phoenix Herald, 3 Jan 1884
Territory of Arizona vs. Alfredo Brown, 1881
Lewis, History of Irrigation in Tempe, p. 35
Solliday, Journey to Rio Salado, pp. 52, 64, 69-71
Double Butte Cemetery, Tempe Tempe CD, 1923
Person TypeIndividual
